2005 offers an exceptional series of opportunities for the UK to take a lead internationally, to start turning things around. This year as the UK hosts the annual G8 gathering of powerful world leaders and heads up the European Union (EU), the UK Government will be a particularly influential player on the world stage.

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY urges the government and international decision makers to rise to the challenge of 2005. MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY is calling for urgent and meaningful policy change on three critical and inextricably linked areas: trade, debt and aid.

SPEAK are currently campaigning on trade with the Big Dress. The Big Dress is calling for multinationals to be held accountable for the way they treat their workers and the environment; specifically that new laws are introduced in three key areas.

a) Reporting: This would require all UK companies to report annually in their global social, human rights and environmental impact.
b) Duty of Care: This would make directors of UK companies who do not take all the necessary steps possible to limit the negative social and environmental impact of the businesses liable for the damage they cause.
c) Liability: This would allow communities to bring cases against UK companies in the UK, if justice fails them in the country in which an abuse took place.

These laws need to be introduced, as the voluntary approach to Corporate Responsibility has failed. Some companies are choosing to protect the environment and their workers, but too many aren’t. Ethical business practice shouldn’t be optional, or a niche market. It should be the norm. Currently there are more than 800,000 multinationals and affiliated companies. Many of these are bigger than governments and are some of the world’s biggest foreign investors. With this level of financial power, the private sector could bring enormous benefits to local communities, and we believe that introducing these new laws would ensure these potential benefits would become realities.

For more on our website, see our Big Dress campaign and our Trade Justice campaign.

In the past SPEAK has campaigned for debt cancellation. We believe that the cancellation of unpayable debts for the world’s poorest countries will lead to real alleviation of poverty. Click here to read more.

SPEAK’s recent pullout gives a succinct and comprehensive overview of MPH, and why it focusses on trade, debt and aid. It also goes into some detail about how the Big Dress fits in.